feather

Definitions

• A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display.
• Long hair on the lower legs of a dog or horse, especially a draft horse, notably the Clydesdale breed. Narrowly only the rear hair.
• One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.
• A longitudinal strip projecting from an object to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sideways but permit motion lengthwise; a spline.
• Kind; nature; species (from the proverbial phrase "birds of a feather").
• One of the two shims of the three-piece stone-splitting tool known as or plug and feathers; the feathers are placed in a borehole and then a wedge is driven between them, causing the stone to split.
• The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water.
• Anything petty or trifling; a whit or jot.
• (hunting) Partridges and pheasants, as opposed to rabbits and hares (called fur).